S. T. Karnick is Director of Research for The Heartland Institute and editor and chief writer for The American Culture. Before joining Heartland, he served as director of publications for the Hudson Institute, where he was co-founder and editor in chief of the organization's quarterly magazine, American Outlook, and its daily web version, American Outlook Today. He has written numerous articles for publications such as National Review, The Weekly Standard, FrontPage Magazine, Tech Central Station, WorldNet Daily, The American Spectator, National Review Online, The National Interest, Orbis, Christianity Today, The American Enterprise, Books and Culture, Insight, The Washington Times, The Indianapolis Star, Breakpoint, and many others, as well as for radio and television.
S.T. Karnick
‘Star Trek’: Abrams Makes Optimism Cool Again
by S.T. Karnick
Despite early polling data showing a distinct lack of enthusiasm toward the Star Trek movie reboot by J. J. Abrams (Lost, Alias, Cloverfield, Fringe, Felicity), the film had an excellent opening weekend at the U.S. movie box office.
The film took in an estimated $72.5 million over the weekend. Even when adjusted for inflation, that’s far more than any of the previous Star Trek movies took in.
This has cultural significance beyond the fortunes of the Star Trek franchise and its studio. As I noted in writing about an Abrams interview last fall, Abrams said “he was drawn to the idealism behind the franchise. He hopes to make a more optimistic point of view as popular as the somewhat bleak vision of The Dark Knight was.” (more…)
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CW’s ‘Supernatural’ Presents Biblical Ideas in Dark Melodrama
by S.T. KarnickConservative critics of U.S. television programming are correct to observe that TV drama and comedy fiction series have seldom had clergy as positive characters during the past couple of decades. However, that does not mean that network series television has treated religion in a uniformly hostile manner. In fact, in recent years the treatment of religion, especially Christianity, has often been quite positive.
One of the most interesting programs in this regard is the CW Network show Supernatural (2005-present). The show follows the work of twenty-something brothers Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, respectively), who wander the nation hunting down supernatural evils that must be destroyed to stop the monsters’ nefarious work of killing humans.
Working from a diary left by their father (who died at the beginning of season 2 (”In My Time of Dying”), the pair use the means described in it to dispatch ghosts, werewolves, and even demons, while seeking the demon that killed their mother while Sam was an infant and killed Sam’s girlfriend in the series’ pilot episode. (more…)
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ABC’s ‘Castle’: Exemplary TV
by S.T. KarnickLike the best works of popular culture, the ABC mystery-crime series Castle is both entertaining and edifying. It exemplifies an increasingly strong trend in the American culture: the use of grim, sensual, bizarre, disturbed, or perverse imagery and subject matter in works of popular art that promulgate positive values and attitudes.
Certainly Castle has plenty of immorality and other damaging personal behavior in evidence. Set in modern-day Manhattan, the series stars Nathan Fillion (Firefly) as wealthy mystery writer Richard Castle, who accompanies police detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic, The Spirit, Quantum of Solace) on homicide investigations in order to glean valuable real-life knowledge to use in his murder mysteries. The conceit is that Castle is able to get this kind of access because he is a friend of the mayor and many other highly influential people in the city. (more…)
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Hulu.com May Be Target of Antitrust Attack
by S.T. Karnick
As is sadly the case for all good things, the video website Hulu.com may well come under attack by the government, specifically in the form of antitrust action by the Obama administration.
Socialism’s great horde of media apologists has begun a strong drumbeat calling for the U.S. government to go after Hulu, the immensely and increasingly successful source of online streaming media content.
Cord Blomquist of the Competitive Enterprise Institute documents the socialists’ campaign for a government attack on Hulu in an excellent article at the Technology Liberation Front website. “Many media commentators are already using the kind of language we associate with past media antitrust cases,” Blomquist notes. (more…)
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Zombie Culture and the March of Socialism
by S.T. KarnickYes, vampires are still a hot media commodity, but zombies are vying to knock them off the cultural pedestal, with the rise of zombie movies as a cultural force and numerous books about zombies hitting the stores, capped by the spoof novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies having recently reached the top of the bestseller list. An article in the Chicago Tribune documents the phenomenon and suggests some reasons for it.
First the author suggests audience identification as the main factor: we are interested in zombies because according to the mythology, we could become them ourselves (should we die after being bitten by one):
“There’s a sadness,” said S.G. Browne. “They used to be us. But they’re tragic and comical and they want to be friends, but we run. Vampires are Brad Pitts. Zombies are more like the Steve Buscemis. We can relate.”
That natural sense of sympathy, however, conflicts with an even more fundamental urge: the drive to stay alive, as the latter absolutely requires that we kill every zombie we can find. That’s a rather poignant situation, and I think it does indeed account for some of the power of zombie stories. (more…)
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Court Upholds FCC Authority Over Broadcast Indecency
by S.T. Karnick
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the FCC’s authority to impose fines on broadcasters for allowing obscene language on the air.
By a 5-4 majority the Court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission did not violate the federal Administrative Procedure Act in its 2006 decision that the Fox TV network had violated decency rules in 2002 and 2003 when singer Cher and actress/TV personality Nicole Ritchie blurted out expletives on live television in separate incidents. The FCC did not actually impose any fines in the case at issue.
The Court will likely be asked to rule on the constitutionality of the FCC policy as broadcasters challenge the ruling on constitutional grounds. (more…)
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Leftist Politics Killed the Hollywood Drama
by S.T. KarnickEscape has been the theme for U.S. moviegoers in recent months, but audiences aren’t avoiding attending good, serious films; Hollywood is avoiding making them.
The newly released, highly derivative thriller Obsessed finished first at the U.S. office this past weekend, bringing in a surprising $28.5 million. That’s twice what industry analysts had expected and a good deal more than the film’s relatively low $20 million production budget.
It’s also emblematic of a central problem facing Hollywood today: the decline of serious drama.
First-weekend audiences for Obsessed were undoubtedly swelled by the presence of singer Beyonce and the prospect of a catfight between her and homewrecker Ali Larter (Heroes). Undoubtedly the film did not disappoint in that regard. (more…)
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Web ‘Superbrain’ Predicts ‘House’ Plot Surprise
by S.T. Karnick
Last week’s episode of the Fox Network medical-mystery series House included a Big Event meant to shock the show’s viewers and send the story line in an interesting new direction, as one of the main characters of the series was killed. As it happens, the show’s fans figured out exactly who it would be, several days in advance of the program’s airing, as the kind of public conversation the Internet makes so easy enabled a mass pooling of information and instant critiquing of same. (more…)
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‘Eleventh Hour’ Ends Season on High Note
by S.T. KarnickAs noted in my previous articles on the CBS TV mystery-drama series Eleventh Hour (here, here and here), the show consistently presents interesting, intelligent, and fair-minded discussions of science issues in a dramatic (if often far-fetched) context. In addition, the show doesn’t portray business as the catch-all villain, giving a much more balanced range of motives and miscreants.
Thursday night’s episode, “Medea,” ended the program’s first season on a high note in terms of the ideas and attitudes it expressed. FBI science consultant Jacob Hood (Rufus Sewell) investigates the case of a woman who appears to be suffering from delusions caused by schizophrenia. (more…)
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‘Eleventh Hour’ Presents Politically Incorrect, Balanced Story Lines
by S.T. KarnickA good many people will watch the final episode of NBC’s long-running drama series ER tonight, given the show’s popularity over the years. I, however, will be watching something else: the season-ending episode of the CBS-TV mystery-drama series Eleventh Hour. I recommend that you do likewise, and that you catch the show when CBS reruns it in the coming months or watch them online at the show’s website.
Based on a smug, scientistic, and politically left BBC series of recent vintage, the CBS version of Eleventh Hour is a rather interesting program from the standpoint of the ideas it presents, and, wonder of wonders, is usually fair to both sides of the scientific controversies dealt with in the story lines.
The show manages to avoid the temptation to adopt facile attitudes that make for easy answers to complex problems, and its producers also refuse to indulge in the too-easy presentation of science as good and religion as a dangerous force impeding the unalloyed benefits of science. They recognize that science doesn’t have all the answers and that religion has a valid place in human life. In that regard the show is far superior to its BBC predecessor. (more…)
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PBS’ Dickens Adaptation Politicizes, Vulgarizes Classic Novel
by S.T. Karnick
The latest PBS adaptation of Charles Dickens’s classic novel Oliver Twist demonstrates the urgent need for reform of the taxpayer-supported broadcasting service–or an end to taxpayer funding for it.
The temptation to “improve” on classic works of culture seems all but irresistible, especially to the political radicals and social transformers who infest public broadcasting organizations in the United States and Europe. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has long been known as a very aggressive practitioner of efforts at political and social transformation through its partially taxpayer-funded Public Broadcasting System (PBS) for television and its National Public Radio (NPR) network. (more…)
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‘Life on Mars’ Exemplifies Good, Bad of Hollywood
by S.T. KarnickIt’s all too easy for those who dismiss U.S. television and the culture as a whole as leftist, immoral, and fattening to pick and choose (and misinterpret) episodes and scenes that seem to confirm their assumption that the culture is overwhelmingly awful. The ABC TV police/fantasy drama series Life on Mars, for example, provides some tempting apples for pop culture-haters to pluck.
For instance, episode three, “My Maharishi Is Bigger Than Your Maharishi,” was an agonizingly earnest appeal for tolerance toward homosexuals (which is of course laudable) which included some dubious propositions about the causes and consequences of homosexuality and social attitudes toward it. The episode sent out a big invitation for undiscerning opponents of pop culture to point to Life on Mars as evidence of an ongoing leftist conspiracy to destroy the nation through cultural promulgation of radical, transformative ideas and values. (more…)
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by S.T. Karnick
TG it’s over! G’nite, all.
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by S.T. Karnick
Sean Penn’s speech was exactly as horrid, rambling, and self-indulgent as I expected it to be.
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by S.T. Karnick
They should never do this individual-tribute-of-former-winner-to-current-nominee thing again. It is ghastly.
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by S.T. Karnick
And the Oscar goes to Kate Winslet, for Titanic.
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by S.T. Karnick
Very muted applause for Charlton Heston during the In Memoriam segment. That is utterly contemptible.
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by S.T. Karnick
Melanie, I think Liev Schreiber should have received a supporting actor nomination for his performance in Defiance.
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by S.T. Karnick
Hey, A. R. Rahman is right! I think I’ll “choose love” too! How wrong of me to choose hate all this time.
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by S.T. Karnick
More Slumdog love. That’s good, but it would have been nice to see Defiance win something.
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by S.T. Karnick
Lots of Slumdog Millionaire love tonight. And every award it wins saves us from a speech by somebody who worked on Milk.
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by S.T. Karnick
Why not just create a category for Best Comedy or Musical, like the GGs do? It’s not as if they care to keep the show from getting too long.
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by S.T. Karnick
As soon as you see that one of the short films has Nazi villains, you know it’s going to win.
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by S.T. Karnick
The Slumdog winners have seemed so decent and likeable. Not Hollywood people, as it happens.
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by S.T. Karnick
You know a guy is some kind of superman when you actually look at him when he’s standing beside Natalie Portman.
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by S.T. Karnick
Stiller. Brilliant.
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by S.T. Karnick
The montage of animated films unintentionally made the excellent point that there were too many animated films released last year. WALL-E was quite good, however, and deserving of the award.
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by S.T. Karnick
Only one film to cheer for in this Adapted Screenplay category, and it won. Splendid.
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by S.T. Karnick
“In Bruges” was excellent. Its screenplay was one of the best things about it, and it should have won this screenplay award.
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by S.T. Karnick
Penelope Cruz said the Academy Awards are “a moment of unity for the world.” Hey, thanks, Hollywood.
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